[sdiy] transducers

[Metrophage]

--- Richard Wentk <richard at skydancer.com> wrote:

> The good thing about Karplus Strong is that it's computationally
cheap. 

Yes, that was the idea.

> The bad thing is that no matter what you do to it, it always sounds
like
> a DX7 going 'plink.' So it was a good model for 1983, 

So it's a good thing that we all hate vintage synths here! lol I LOVE
DX7 sounds. The things are a dream to program (with software or on an
SY 77/99), doing things that I'll never get my 13600 VCOs to do in
centuries. My TX816 is one of my favorite synths for percussion, and
many other musical applications. The KS algos don't, in my opinion,
sound "realistic", but they don't remind me of Yamaha FM. You can do a
lot of interesting things with controlled feedback, depending on how
you apply it. 

> but the fact that no one has ever tried to sell a commercial KP synth
says a 
> lot about how successful it is as a modern synthesis technique.

Now that's just funny! I agree that the basic KS concept needs to be
spiced up a lot to make an engaging instrument, but to say that a
technique is only modern if someone has succeeded in marketing it is
absurd. Unless you are a marketer, I suppose! How many commercial
additive synths have really taken off? Formant filters? If its cheap,
it gets commercialized - that's why KS was proposed, and why stuff like
wavetable synths and DX7s became popular. Now that there is cheap,
general-purpose DSP practically all hardware synths I find are "virtual
analog", which is the fuel of other tired rants.

My point is that "success" not unlike "efficiency" and other such
ideals, is entirely subjective to what your goals are. The goal of
Karplus and Strong WAS to be computationally cheap, not to be an
accurate model. Marketers and the MBA notion that you should obviously
sell as many of something as possible is a shortsighted one, a
by-product of the industrial revolution which still holds its novelty.
I have yet to hear many persuasive explanations for a future of "mass
production", the future is more likely to be custom items made cheaply
to order. Only as many as are needed. I like the elegance of hybrid
synths with extensive gestural interfacing and control signal
processing, so to me even a Serge or Buchla is more "modern" and
"successful" than most current offerings.

> Some of the newer phys mod tools sound much more interesting. Check
> out Tassman for some examples.

Which is why I suggested checking out modal synthesis, which is the
type of synthesis which Tassman is implemented with!

CJ


		
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